How to Grow Summer Squash

Summer squash, which includes zucchini, is a warm-weather plant that loves the heat of the summer months. Use a rototiller to get summer squash out of the ground with help from an organic farmer in this free video on vegetable gardening and horticulture. View Video Transcript

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Jarrett Man

Video Transcript

Hi I'm Jarrett from Stone Soup Farm and this is how to grow Summer squash. Summer squash of which zucchini is one type is a warm weather plant. They are not frost tolerant but they love the heat of the Summer. To plant them one should prepare a nice bed in the Spring after all danger of frost has left. Hopefully you can get it nice and tilled up maybe with a rototiller or by hand and incorporate as much compost or manure as you can into the soil. You can see that the plants are relatively large plants about four feet in diameter so if you do it in a raised bed system like this I would plant about four to five feet apart per plant or you could do it a little bit closer if you would like to but they'll be a little bit crowded and you get less per plant. After you have sown the seeds you keep them well watered throughout the season and make sure that you control the weeds as much as you can around the plant for increasing the yields. Once they start to get big they'll flower and after each flower comes the fruit, the zucchini or the Summer squash. It is best to harvest them when they are young and small. They are very tender when you let them get too old they will get a harder rind and the seeds get a little mushy. Take it and cut it off at the base. A lot of times they'll even have their flower still at the end of it and you can just take that off and there's your harvest. Again they are a warm loving plant so they will die in the Fall but they also have some disease problems which are unavoidable and it is good to plant more Summer squash and zucchini every three or four weeks depending on how much you want throughout the Summer and when the frost comes it will wipe them out and that's it for the year if there's nothing else you can do. Summer squash plants like these grow about the same. They are very fast. They're very prolific and you can get a lot out of them for not much work. I'm Jarrett from Stone Soup Farm and that's how to grow Summer squash.